


The Good Man Gone

by DaughterOfKings



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Not A Fix-It, Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9085978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfKings/pseuds/DaughterOfKings
Summary: Leia doesn’t have Luke’s training or his faith. She falters as the years pass, as the war renews itself while she grows old, but she doesn’t shatter the way he does when everything is taken from them. She doesn’t run or hide when the Republic’s courage fails. She rebels. She thinks, I couldn’t face myself if I gave up now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I wanted to write something that linked _Rogue One_ to _The Force Awakens_ , but I didn't know how to do it until I got "Leia tells their story," which owes at least a little to _Hamilton's_ "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story."
> 
> 2) All the rest is owed to the incredible Carrie Fisher. RIP.

The Alliance never honors the _Rogue One_ team with medals or memorials. Instead, it remembers who they were and how they chose to live.

Leia tells their story during the long night after the destruction of the Death Star when no one sleeps. She is the lone surviving link, the completer of their mission, and she thinks she owes it to them to do this. Her voice is raw from the hours- the days- of grief and celebration, but everyone falls silent so she can be heard.

She laughs, in the following days, when she finds Han going through the _Falcon_ ’s messy logs because he’s certain that he and Jyn Erso crossed paths somewhere. 

She smiles with fierce joy, a few years later, when Luke and Wedge lead a squadron with Bodhi Rook’s callsign in defense of Echo Base.

Luke’s understanding of the Force grows, and grows, and she sometimes hears him recite Guardian prayers he’s never heard and shouldn’t know:

_I am one with the Force and the Force is with me._

_All is as the Force wills it._

Leia doesn’t have Luke’s training or his faith. She falters as the years pass, as the war renews itself while she grows old, but she doesn’t shatter the way he does when everything is taken from them. She doesn’t run or hide when the Republic’s courage fails.

She rebels. 

She thinks, _I couldn’t fac_ e _myself if I gave up now._

Sometimes, when she walks alone through the halls of D’Qar Base, she thinks she sees Cassian Andor out of the corner of her eye- rough and worn like all the rebels in her memory who never made it to thirty- and she doesn’t know if the Force or her own mind is to blame. She doesn’t know which would be worse.

She’d only known Cassian briefly, and mostly by what her father had said- the good man gone to war- but she knows she is part of his legacy. She holds his memory close through every sacrifice, every blood-soaked decision she makes.

She thinks of him when Poe Dameron defects to the Resistance.

Poe is hard-willed and battle-forged, but he’s still such a bright thing- bright in a way that Cassian never was. She has to believe that will make a difference.

She has to believe his fate will be different.

_All is as the Force wills it._

She sends him out on a desperate mission.

She sends him out to bring back hope.


End file.
